Mark Messinger of up Steamboat Island way had a great series of tweets last night on who voted in the library special election last February. Very interesting results?
Olympia city councilmembers Jeff Kingsbury, Joe Hyer, Rhenda Strub, and Thurston County administrator Don Krupp did not. They didn’t vote no, they didn’t turn in a ballot at all.
Councilmemembers (yeah, I guess he’s a mayor) Doug Mah, Karen Messmer, and Joan Machlis, and county commissioners Karen Valenzuela, Cathy Wolfe and Sandra Romero all turned in ballots.
I did receive a reply, from one Olympia City Council member:
"rhenda_iris @markmessinger Why not just ask me Mark? I would have voted no, that's why. I abstained as a courtesy to supporters like yourself."
Wow. Libraries are, in my opinion, one of the essential components to a democracy. Right up there, with voting itself. It seems to me, in one act, Rhenda Strub was able to err on two counts.
On the other hand, the conspiratorial types are always saying that our leadership would prefer a more docile, less-informed constituency. Maybe that's what's going on here. . .
I agree with you regarding the role of libraries in democracy, and I would assume that Rhenda would have voted no because she prefers a more docile electorate.
There are a lot of people, who leading up to the election, had questions about how our particular library system is funded, that urban areas are under served compared to rural ones. I think those concerns are unfounded, but I respect the concerns.
Also, there are some other quesitons that how the library board itself is run isn't very democratic. They aren't very communicative about what they're up to and I tend to agree more with these arguments.